With rapid advance of medical technology that help to improve the life expectancy of every human population, researches relating to apparatus capable of sensing and monitoring physiological signals are becoming popular as health management and disease prevention are becoming an important issue of our everyday life. Hence, various sensing apparatus for monitoring physiological attributes, no matter it is a medical-grade device specialized for hospitals or is a homecare device for daily usage, are being developed.
Among those sensible physiological attributes, data acquired from electrocardiogram (ECG) might be the essential one, which is a graphic produced by an electrocardiograph and recording the electrical voltage in the heart in the form of a continuous strip graph. It is the prime tool in cardiac electrophysiology, and has a prime function in the screening and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, such as detecting potassium, calcium, magnesium and other electrolyte disturbances, determining whether the heart is performing normally or suffering from abnormalities (eg. extra slow heartbeats—bradycardia), etc.
Most electrode patches used in currently available electrocardiographs are substantially sensing units that can be attached to skin for sensing electrical information and are designed and structured separated from the electrocardiographs, i.e. each of those conventional electrode patches is electrically connected to an electrocardiograph only by connecting a signal wire extending from each electrode patch to the electrocardiograph. However, the task of connecting and wiring electrode patches to an electrocardiograph is pretty complicated and troublesome, which causes great inconvenience for person operating the electrocardiograph.
It is noted that most conventional electrode patches are composed as a paster-type patch with metal stud fitted thereon, such as those disclosed in TW Pat. No. 00581319 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,168. Please refer to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, which shows respectively an electrode patch disclosed in TW Pat. No. 00581319 and another electrode patch disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,168. However, the arranging of a metal stud 1 on an electrode patch not only will increase the thickness of the resulting electrode patch, but also it will cause discomfort to any person attached thereby.
Therefore, it is in need of an improved bio-monitoring apparatus that is freed from those shortcomings of prior arts.